We all know that there are things we should be doing to stay safe online, but keeping current with the latest technology can be daunting, even for the tech literate. The good news is that you can get a handle on the basics without reading a 300 page manual that's about as interesting as watching paint dry.

Enter Really Simple Security, a biweekly, one-minute long video series hosted on YouTube, designed for the regular folks among us. Don't just take our word for it; watch their video on a very timely subject matter:

It's partly just my natural contrarianism, but I love finding indictments of common web-design orthodoxy. For years, I've frequently cited the authoritative resource dowebsitesneedtolookexactlythesameineverybrowser.com in discussions with colleagues. So I got a big kick out of Paddy Donnelly's beautifully designed visual essay Life Below 600px (via).

Donnolly questions "the fold," the idea that everything important in a website should be visible without requiring the user to scroll down. "Many web designers, after presenting a site design, hear the client worriedly ask 'But, where is the fold?!' Your first response is usually to switch on the guides in Photoshop to show and they then nervously say 'Hmm, yeah, we're going to need those articles, and those links, and those 6 images all above the fold.' And there goes any sense of white space, readability and storytelling you had planned for their site."

Donnolly uses the example of the 37signals website. 37signals' key links do appear at the top of the page, but a lot of important information appears below the fold. The entire page is much longer than most corporate homepages, but it's also more navigable, readable, and appealing.

In nonprofit web design, we talk a lot about the visibility of key actions for the user, the most obvious example being the "Donate" button. But who's going to give you a donation without touching their scrollwheel — that is, without hearing your story? From Donnolly:

Charity How To is an online collection of videos to help nonprofits learn how to use the Internet more effectively. The site offers videos and recorded webinars from many luminaries in the sector (including our content partners at Idealware), and now it features several of our recorded TechSoup Talks! webinars. According to Charity How To's About page, "Our on-demand video guides are designed specifically for small and midsized nonprofits with limited human and financial resources. Our industry experts create easy-to-follow, informative step-by-step guides." Many of the videos (including TechSoup's) are free, while others are available for a small price.

Here are a few of the videos you can start watching right away for free:

Free Videos

• What Is RSS Anyway?
• How to Use and Create Audiocasts
• How to Monitor Your Organization's Online Buzz
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Are you ready to start using social media in your organization? It's a more complicated question than you might think: adopting new media necessarily means giving up a certain degree of control over your message, and there's a host of reasons not to loosen the reins. On the other hand, losing that control can bring your message to exponentially more people than were previously possible. Consider the story of Mister Splashy Pants (via):

In the wake of the huge number of donations given to Haiti earthquake relief via text mesage, MobileActive has published Texting for Charitable Dollars: The Definitive Guide. 

It describes the process of raising funds via SMS from the donors' and the nonprofits' perspectives, including costs and tips for getting started. The guide is available for free at http://mobileactive.org/mobile-fundraising.

Donations via text message for Haiti relief efforts have surpassed $37 million, more than quadruple the amount when we posted about SMS donations originally.

There are also lots more organizations accepting donations via text messaging through mGive, who set up the SMS donation platform.

Click through for an updated list of text messaging codes and the organizations who receive them, followed by participating carriers.

Text messaging charges apply for most carriers, but you can check out our original post to see which organizations you can donate to free of charge if you're with one of the big four carriers.

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Due to high demand (and the resulting slower-than-ideal site today) the special discount on the popular fundraising software GrantStation, the powers-that-be at TechSoup and GrantStation have decided to extend the $99 discount offer until noon Pacific time (3 p.m. Eastern) tomorrow.

What's GrantStation, you say? "An annual membership to GrantStation provides access via the Internet to a comprehensive set of grant research tools that link nonprofits to current sources of grant money and teach organizations how to secure available funding. You do not need to download or install special software to use these tools."

Many nonprofits, including several of TechSoup's member organizations, are working hard to bring aid to earthquake victims in Haiti. It's dangerous work, and these organizations will need a lot of help to get operations in Haiti up and running (or up and running again, as many of our member organizations had offices in Haiti before the quake).

Fortunately, several of TechSoup's donation partners have stepped up and either promised funds or otherwise directed aid toward relief efforts in Haiti.

• Microsoft has committed $1.25 million in relief funds, promised to match employee donations up to $12,000, and started several other relief efforts.
• NetHope, a group of 28 NGOs supported by Microsoft, Cisco (another donation partner), and others, aims to improve communication in developing countries and since the quake has been working to set up Internet connectivity in Haiti.
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If you didn't get the chance to watch it live, please take an hour to watch the TechSoup Talks! webinar What Should a Website Cost? with special guest Allen Gunn. Though Gunner does answer the webinar's titular question, he does a lot more than that, taking us step-by-step through the process of scoping, planning, sourcing, and executing a website redesign. It's a highly entertaining and engaging listen.

One point that comes up a few times in the webinar is that good content for your website is (and should be) more work than the website design itself. Gunner posits that for many nonprofits, a website design may be the first time they think in concrete terms about the story and message that they tell the public. At Poke the Beehive, Dan challenges you to ask yourself whether your nonprofit's story has a clear call to action at all: "There are countless nonprofits out there who, given their limited impact, don't really have a reason to exist. Don't be one of them. If you can't tell a compelling story about your organization and its mission, then perhaps you should reconsider what you're doing or how you're doing it."

It's often the case that different stakeholders, both inside and outside of the organization, have their own stories of who the organization is and what it does. That's expected, but the unfortunate thing is when the nonprofit's homepage and other media present a watered-down compromise rather than a clear story. Before our redesign last year, TechSoup's homepage reflected such a compromise. Each program had its own box for recent updates, but there was no overarching narrative. If your site lacks a clear message and call to action, then it doesn't matter how pretty it is: it brands your organization as confused and disarrayed; on the other hand, if your website's message is clear, direct, and actionable, then even the most technically crude site can engage with visitors in a beneficial way.

Our friends at Ashoka (previously) recently created an excellent downloadable guide to using SMS (text messages) for social change. You can download the guide directly (1.1 MB PDF) or learn more about it here.

We discussed mobile giving here about a year ago, and it's grown a lot in prominence even since then (Kevin blogged about new developments in microgiving just a few days ago) but SMS is much more than a fundraising tool. In the guide's introduction, Ashoka offers these examples of how NGOs are using SMS today.

• Farmers receive details of market prices and demand for their products before heading off to market.
• Health NGOs send dietary advice and information to people with eating disorders.
• Young people living in the slums of Nairobi receive texts alerting them of urban job opportunities.
• National parks communicate details of dangerous animals, providing an early warning system to reduce human and wildlife conflict.
• Water sanitation advice and community training updates are sent to municipal counselors.
• Patients receive reminders to take their medicine, saving time and money traveling to clinics.
• Security and emergency alerts are sent to staff and fieldworkers in high-risk situations.

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